Medifast Food Review: Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

Brief blog post...  I tried the Chicken and Wild Rice Soup.  Verdict? Not good.  Like most of the hearty meals it really needs to soak.  It had too many peas and was very bland.

Adding chicken and hot sauce made it barely palatable.

Not a fan but with the right seasoning it might be better. Next time I will use broth and add garlic to it.

Medifast Food Review: Orange Cream Shake

Tried another new food this morning, today an Orange Cream Shake. After having success with the Strawberry shake, I thought I'd give this one a try. While packing my meals this morning I shoved a blender bottle and an Orange Cream powder into my lunch bag. I had to take Lauren to the Orthodontist so I skipped eating at home.

I sat at the Orthodontist for 30 minutes (playing Hearthstone on my Windows Tablet grabbing internet from my phone's wireless hotspot, hooray for technology! Oh, and I won my game, too.), and then dropped Lauren off to school came to work, and mixed up my shake.

I added some ice cubes to the bottle, and 6 oz of water, and then added the packet. the packet had an odd greenish tint to it, and smelled very strong of artificial orange flavor. I shook it up like crazy for a couple minutes, then let it sit. I've learned over the years that protein shakes need to sit and soak in water for a while or they are gritty, so I let this one sit for a few minutes to let it get colder and smoother.

Five minutes later I gave it another blast of shaking, then took a sip. Immediately the flavor hit me. It was very reminiscent of orange cake batter. It was just thick enough, and very sweet, and very artificial orange flavor. That combined, and sure enough, cake batter. I liked it, but it was really too sweet for 'breakfast'.

Much like the strawberry shake, I'd only recommend this to people that like artificial fruit flavor. But if you like orange soda, orange candy, etc... then this is pretty good. I think it could also be a good basis for a chocolate/orange dessert of some type. Maybe a mix of Brownie Soft bake and orange cream shake could be frozen together into a truffle of some sort?

Medifast 'Sunrise Smoothie' and FitBit update

This morning I did an experiment with some Medifast meals... I tried to emulate the Sonic 'Sunrise Smoothie'.

I took a packet of Strawberry shake, and a packet of Banana shake, and mixed them with water in a blender bottle. Then I took ice and blended it into snow, added a 1/4 cup of light Orange Juice and half the shake mix, and blended it.

I got a very bland and inoffensive smoothie. Hints of banana, strawberry, and orange, but nothing really exciting, and I won't make it again after I finish the second half of it tomorrow.

Also, I just got my weekly FitBit results!

Everything seems to be moving along fairly well here. My daily step average is down a bit, but I'm happy with the rest of the numbers. I need to be sleeping more, but that's always going to be a challenge. Of note was that I picked up my 250 mile badge! Woo.

Medifast Food Review: Strawberry Shake Mix

My supply of Medifast ready-to-drink shakes is declining rapidly, and so this morning I decided to mix up some strawberry shake powder. A coworker recently stopped using Medifast and gave me her extra food, and she had a lot of shake mixes.

Now, the first thing I knew, from protein shakes in the past, is that to be drinkable they need to be COLD but also not full of ice chips. So, I grabbed a blender bottle, added 6 oz of water and the mix and a blender ball, but then I threw a few ice cubes into the Ninja and blended it into 'snow'.

I dropped the snow into the bottle and shook it for a minute or so. (I could have put the mix into the Ninja. However, adding liquid makes it very hard to get the ice to the snow consistency I wanted, AND by just using ice, I didn't need to wash it immediately and can use it for smoothies tonight.)

You'd think they could make stock photos look more appealing than this. The stuff looks like pale pepto. Leave it in your blender bottle and don't look at it is my advice.

After a minute of shaking, I took a sip, and was very pleasantly surprised. It was very similar to strawberry milk or a strawberry YooHoo, and there wasn't too much of that graininess I tend to associate with protein shakes. It was really good if you like that bright pink fake strawberry flavor. If you don't like that clearly artificial flavor combined with the consistency of a protein shake, then I'd avoid it, but for me it will be a nice change of pace.

Now that I've tried this and liked it, I may be more willing to try out other powdered shakes and move away from the RTD version. I ordered some of the Orange Creme ones, which I know most people don't care for, but we'll see!

Medifast Mashed Potatoes - mini review from my phone

Medifast has recently started selling mashed potatoes and I purchased a box with our last order.

The ones I chose were the sour cream and chive flavor.  Prepared according to the instructions they do a passable simulation of instant mashed potatoes,  however they are a little grainy and very bland.

I doctored them with some diced chicken,  Worcestershire sauce,  garlic salt,  and pepper.  With that they were actually quite good.

If you are a big fan of potatoes then they are a nice approximation,  but otherwise I would stick with the mac and cheese.

Medifast Menu Choices

As we continue our Medifast diet, the options as to what we eat are settling in, and I definitely have some preferences starting to get 'hard coded' as to what I prefer to eat, and when.

Meal 1 - Breakfast: For this meal I always want one of three things... a Ready to Drink Chocolate Shake, or Cinnamon or Mixed Berry Cereal with Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk. I strongly associate shakes and cereal with breakfast and these are by far my favorite choices.  

Failed to make the cut: Pancakes, Blueberry Muffins. While both of these are ok, they aren't a go-to choice. I'm not sure how many of either of these I'll be ordering in the future... having a box of one or the other on hand is probably a good idea for variety, but they won't be a common choice.

Meal 2 - Snack: For this I almost always want a Crunch Bar. My favorite crunch bar is the chocolate peanut butter, followed up with Lemon Meringue and Cinnamon Roll. Caramel Crunch is ok but not great, but I'm hoping the application of some sea salt will transform this. I'll be trying that today. I also like the Chewy bars (Cookie Dough and Chocolate Peanut Butter), but they aren't as satisfying as the crunch bars.

Failed to make the cut: Chocolate Mint Crunch Bar. Not a fan. 

Meal 3 - Lunch: This is where I want something hot with more preparation. My go to here is by far the Macaroni and Cheese. Chili and Cream of Chicken soup are also good options. All three of these choices need to be doctored for me to enjoy them... 

• Mac  & Cheese: Add a Laughing Cow wedge and a dash of Tony Chachere's Cajun Seasoning
• Chili: Add an ounce of ground turkey and a lot of chili powder.
• Cream of chicken soup: add a drop of bullion and Cajun Seasoning, plus an ounce of finely diced chicken breast.

Because of the pain in adding an ounce of lean protein to the chili and the soup, they are less common.

Failed to make the cut: Sloppy Joe. This is far too tomato-y, and just didn't have a good flavor. I had to doctor it a lot to get it to where I liked it. Once I had, it was ok, but this will not be a staple, ever. 

Meal 4 - Snack: Here, the Honey Mustard Pretzel Bites are the clear winner. Cinnamon Pretzels are good too, but I prefer something more savory. Chili Nacho Puffs are a good change of pace. I want to try the BBQ bites next order, though.

Failed to make the cut: Parmesan Puffs and Cheese Pizza Bites. Neither of these have a flavor I really like. Both are inoffensive and edible, but why bother when I like the pretzels? 

Meal 5 - Dessert: Number one choice is the Soft Bake Brownie... once we learned how to make it awesome. Second choice is chocolate pudding. Finally, we just learned a new way to use the Chocolate Chip soft bake as well. When made in their 'normal' way, none of these really did it for me, but doctored? Oh man, these are good...

• Brownie: mix a bit of extra water, pour half into a ramekin, drop 2 TBSP of PB2 onto the brownie mix, cover with remaining batter, bake at 350 for 15 minutes and then chill for 1-2 hours.
• Chocolate Pudding: mix in a Ninja blender with 1 cup of ice, 1/2 cup of water, and some PB2 and Cocoa Powder for a dark chocolate peanut butter frosty.
• Chocolate Chip: mix in the Ninja with water and ice, plus an ounce of cream cheese and a bit of cocoa powder for a cookie dough smoothie. 

  Failed to make the cut: Preparing any of these desserts by the directions!

Things we haven't tried yet:

There are still a lot of bars we haven't ordered, and most of those will likely get a one-box order now and then to add them.

I'm not interested in the other puddings or shakes, or the soft serves at all... I feel like the options I have now are sufficient, but it's possible we'll try them later.

Oatmeal and Eggs are both iffy. I'd rather use Egg Beaters than powdered eggs, and I've never liked oatmeal unless it was piled high with sugar.

The hot drinks hold absolutely no interest for me, either.

A couple of the other hearty choices (Ziti, Soups) are potential pick ups, but not until I start getting sick of Mac and Cheese.